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For the uninitiated, Javert hunts for Valjean against the backdrop of the Paris Uprising of 1832. Adorable street urchins, sassy prostitutes and virile subversives band together to build barricades, and to sing on top of them, until they are gunned down by French troops. The adorably smitten Cosette and Marius wonder whether they'll ever see each other again. Thieving innkeepers Monsieur and Madame Thenardier (Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter, garishly over-the-top even by the characters' standards) wonder when their next unsuspecting victim will come along. And Jean Valjean wonders whether he'll ever truly be free. How you feel walking out of this film two and a half hours later will depend a great deal on what you brought into it going in. Maybe you listened to the soundtrack fanatically in high school and still know all the words to "On My Own." Perhaps you were thrilled to see the show on stage during a vacation to New York (and there's a nice little cameo from Colm Wilkinson, the original Jean Valjean from the London and Broadway productions). You will probably be in far better shape than someone coming into this cold. You may even cry when key characters die, even though you know full well what fate awaits them. There's no shame in that
-- we're all friends here. "Les Miserables," a Universal Pictures release, is rated PG-13 for suggestive and sexual material, violence and thematic elements. Running time: 158 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four. ___ Motion Picture Association of America rating definition for PG-13: Some material may be inappropriate for young children.
[Associated
Press;
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